USDA Rural Development and partners are answering the call by investing in state‐of‐the art, modern wastewater treatment facilities in communities like Smith Island, MD and many others located throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Smith Island Wastewater Treatment Facility

Smith Island’s wastewater treatment facility consisted of two pump stations, serving the three communities that make up Smith Island: Ewell, Rhodes Point, and Tylerton. After four decades and prolonged exposure to the elements from moist marine air, the components of the wastewater treatment facility began to corrode, break down, and fail. This left the surrounding bay and wildlife vulnerable to combined sewer overflows.

Federal, state, and local agencies collaborated on a solution: a new, modern wastewater treatment facility. Through the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program, USDA Rural Development provided the community with $83,000 in loan, and $5,000,000 in grant funds, with other partners providing the balance, to help the community afford the $22.3 million Smith Island Wastewater Treatment Facility.

Expected to be completed next year, the new wastewater treatment facility will help mitigate overflow concerns and improve water quality in Merlin Gut and Francis Gut within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

Peter Bozick, Executive Vice President of George, Miles & Buhr, LLC, the engineer and architecture firm designing the new facility said, “The island is sinking slowly due to climate change and rising sea levels, and the former infrastructure was susceptible to flooding. In addition to replacing the treatment facility with new materials that can resist corrosion, we raised the pumping stations about five feet higher in order to be above the 100‐year flood zone.”

The new treatment facility will significantly reduce the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus to lower levels. This is important because excessive levels of these nutrients contribute to harmful algae growth, which can block sunlight and deplete the amount of oxygen in the water.

This significant investment in improving infrastructure on Smith Island is contributing to a positive outlook for the future of Smith Island.

Laura Evans speaks about the community, the value of good infrastructure and the USDA support.